Speaking personally, I liked this movie just fine when it came out, and it was apparent to me that the widespread trashing of it was a direct result of viewers' collective experience being colored by too many expectations. Also, I had a huge crush on Natalie Portman. Also, I didn't mind that it was convoluted and overwritten, but then again, I know most people don't share my interest in international (or interplanetary) mercantile trade politics.
Plinkett's piece gave me a whole new understanding of the movie -- he paradoxically helped me to understand how bad Phantom really is while simultaneously opening my eyes to a new level of appreciation for it. Unlike most people you talk to, who seem unwilling to dignify Phantom with any critical thinking beyond "Man, that movie sucked!" Plinkett delivers a virtual treatise on film making and storytelling by focusing in on specific failed elements of and contrasting them with better executions found elsewhere in the canon.
However, there are a few things about the movie that even Plinkett doesn't understand (which I guess is his point, i.e. appreciating a film shouldn't require an inside-baseball familiarity with its universe). The most essential one is this:
QUI-GON JINN IS THE PROTAGONIST.
And consider George Lucas' own biography. When he made Star Wars, Lucas saw himself as Luke (hint: almost the same name!), a scrappy young kid with a dream who didn't really know what he was doing but went for it anyway. Twenty years later, Qui-Gon is his reflection: an older guy who still doesn't really know what he's doing, but he's always followed his gut, and it's worked out for him so far.
Once you understand that Qui-Gon is the main character, everything else falls into place. Qui-Gon is reckless -- he trusts and follows his instincts. He improvises. He doesn't waste too much time on plans, he mostly just acts.
This hopefully sheds new light on any confusion about the Tatooine sequence -- Qui-Gon doesn't worry about getting totally sidetracked on Tatooine, even though he should probably be focused on getting Queen Amidala to Coruscant, because he's curious about this slave boy he happens to meet. By sticking around for the pod race, Qui-Gon manages to not only get the repair parts he needs, but also to steal the boy away from his rightful owner (which, as we all know, eventually leads to the ruin and subsequent rebirth of the Jedi Order). "Our meeting was no accident," says Qui-Gon. "Everything happens for a reason."
Clearly Qui-Gon cares more about "going with the flow" of the force than about "following the rules," whether he's cheating at dice or defying the Jedi Council. But he's been around the block, and after all he is a magical wizard, so perhaps he's earned the right to operate this way. Obi-Wan is his foil: always thinking, always second-guessing, always (well, almost always) cool and logical. Qui-Gon recognizes this: "You're a much wiser man than I." Quite a self-aware and humble thing to say to one's own apprentice!
Likewise, Qui-Gon functions in opposition to that great schemer Palpatine/Darth Sidious/the Emperor. To address any confusion about his grand plan, Palpatine is working the same "divide and conquer" strategy that the American capitalist plutocracy uses to maintain its position in our own country today: as Darth Sidious, he orchestrates the invasion of his own (that is, Palpatine's) home planet, generating the sympathy Palpatine needs to get himself elected Chancellor. That is, he invents a pretext for building a war machine and then goes on to use that same war machine to solidify his own power.
Anyways, back to Qui-Gon... in true Tragic Hero form, Qui-Gon's impetuousness becomes his own undoing, everything spirals out of hand, and in the end Darth Maul sticks a lightsaber into the very guts that got Qui-Gon there in the first place.
To summarize, anybody who straight-up hates The Phantom Menace probably just doesn't get it, and that goes for the other prequels as well.
Did you just say "rightful owner" about a slave? Ugh....
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